Gamescom: FIFA 11: Playing as the Goalie

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We put the new addition to "Be A Pro" through its paces.

By Nate Ahearn

A few weeks ago I ventured up to Vancouver to spend my day playing the fall lineup of sports games being developed by EA Sports. Among them was FIFA 11 and the many additions that EA has made to the game's "Be A Pro" career mode. The biggest addition is easy to point out in the crowd of other improvements: you can now play as the goalie. Not only does that open up multiplayer to full 11-on-11 games, but it presents a new way to experience the game on your lonesome as well.

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering if playing as the goalie was any fun. Well, I'm going to be honest here: the answer is both yes and no. There are certainly moments when leaping to your left, arm outstretched to knock away a would-be goal is actually as satisfying as scoring a goal as a striker, but those moments were too few and far between for my offensive tendencies. Playing goalie is more of a slow-paced experience than FIFA soccer has been in recent years, a fact that EA Sports realized when they created the ability for players to zoom ahead to the other end of the field if things get a bit lonely as the netminder.

By pressing the back button (select on PS3) the camera moves from its typical viewpoint set directly behind your keeper up the field so you can get your hands on just a bit of the action. You'll never have direct control over the players' movements, but you will be able to tell them when to pass and when to shoot by pressing the appropriate buttons. When the action moves back to your half of the field, simply warp back behind the goal and take the reins as the keeper again.

Gamescom Reveal Trailer Controlling the goalie himself is probably easier than you imagine. To dive in a direction, simply flick the right stick. Diving is more about timing your flick properly than guessing the direction correctly. Regardless of which way you flick the stick, your goalie is going to dive in the direction of the ball. No matter if you have the diving assist turned to fully assisted, semi-assisted or off, you're still going to leap in the direction of the ball. Only your timing window is affected by tuning the option. Once you have the ball in your hands you can throw it to a teammate, kick it or drop it on the ground and dribble it out of the box. But be careful, you don't want to tire out your goalie with a lot of needless dribbling as that will diminish his range in the box.

The reason for the simplistic diving mechanic has to do with the strategy of properly aligning your goalie in relation to the threatening offense. A red arrow is placed under the feet of strikers so you know which way they're leaning and where their momentum is going. Players will fake shots, they'll curve them away from you and they'll make long passes to the opposite post that you'll need to properly judge in order to snare them in your arms. That little red arrow might seem a bit strange at first, but it soon becomes pivotal to your success on the pitch.

Playing as the goalie is certainly an acquired taste as it differs greatly from the rest of the core FIFA action. It's slower and more methodical, but that also means that the one shot you have to defend a shot could make or break the match for your team. The feeling of stuffing a breakaway is pretty special, but I'll admit that I wish diving was more free-form.

Moments like this are pretty great.

Elsewhere in Be A Pro you'll notice a bevy of new accomplishments, each of which will earn you experience points just as they did in last year's game. Of course, the inclusion of the new goalie position means that there is a host of keeper-specific challenges to complete. All in all the team in Vancouver told me that they've basically doubled the number of challenges across the entire Be A Pro mode.

To practice your game with your pals EA has developed something called Pro Clubs for use in FIFA 11. Basically this lets you check out how much time your buddy's have left in their current game, so you know how long to wait before inviting them to hop into your match. You can also take on the CPU with a full team of eleven players this year in order to practice for an impending contest.

All of these Be A Pro improvements and additions go along with the large amount of gameplay fixes and tweaks that have been made since last year's game. I've talked at length about things like the enhanced physical play and improved graphics, so all I'll say now is that the standard gameplay is coming together nicely and feels great in practice. We'll have more on FIFA 11 as its September 28 release date approaches.